Brendan Moore

I was reading a great piece in a European classic car magazine from 2005 that featured the Opel Diplomat 5.4, a car completely unknown here in the States, but one of my long-time favorites.

The article states that the 5.4 liter V8 ( known as a 327 small-block V8 here in the U.S.) in the Opel Diplomat is the engine from the then-contemporary Corvette. Until recently, I too thought this was the case.

A auto enthusiast magazine here on this continent has a retrospective of the Chevrolet small-block V8 in it's current issue, and one of the interesting anecdotes from people interviewed is from Bob Lutz, currently Vice-Chairman of GM worldwide, and formerly Head of Sales at Opel when the Diplomat 5.4 was developed almost 40 years ago.

Apparently, the small-blocks used in the Opel Diplomat 5.4 are special "endurance racing" versions of the standard Chevrolet small-block engine owing to the fact that the guys at Opel kept burning up the various small-block powerplants (including the standard Corvette engine) sent to them by Chevrolet during the sustained high-speed testing they did for the Diplomat. In order to replicate Autobahn conditions, they ran the cars at a sustained speed of 125 mph for hours on end, and in the process, destroyed quite a few engines. The Opel engineers first went through the stock Chevrolet 5.4 small-block engine, then a special "enhanced" engine that had some Corvette pieces, then the actual Corvette engine, and then were finally sent the "endurance racing" engines which made the grade and thus became the only V8 offered in the Diplomat 5.4 model. So that's the engine you get if you have an Opel Diplomat 5.4, and this may also explain why, although not many Opel Diplomat 5.4 models were produced, you see a fair percentage of the few cars left with very high mileage and still running strong.

Brendan Moore

BTW, for those of you that are interested, I put the whole article on the Autosavant site with some good (interior and exterior) photos of the 1965 Diplomat 5.4 Coupe, courtesy of the Opel PR department.

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cawimmer430

I've always had a thing for the older Opels of the 1960s up to the early 1980s. After that, they because so boring from a styling POV and completely lost their appeal. They mutated from a semi-premium manfucturer into a cheap mainstream manufacturer. Glad that this is not the case today - the newer Opels are very nice from a styling and quality impression POV.

Giannis

I have to admit that i admire the earlier Opels, too! In summer 2006 i had the chance to experience the restoration of one of the first Opel Olympias from first hand, and i have to say that i was pretty much impressed by this car!

Imhotep Evil

1930s are nice/good too, even revolutionary.
The the 60s to early 70s has nice specials like the Sprint, commodore GS and so on.

cawimmer430

Exactly. The Opels from the 1960s and 1970s especially are very classy IMO.

In the mid to late 1980s and the 1990s, Opel's styling was just terrible. Terrible.